The struggle will not end
THE following text, submitted in th names of SERGIO YAHNI and MICHEL
WARSHAWSKY, represents the point of view of the majority of the
Revolutionary Communist League, the section of the Fourth International
International Viewpoint #252 January 1994 in the Israeli State. DOCUMENT
W ITH the signing of
the Oslo Accord (or Washington Accord), something happened in the Middle East, and whatever our assessment of the situation used to be, it is not going to be identical to the reality we knew prior to the Israeli-Palestinian agreement. It is too early to determine what will be the fate of the new order, and it is certainly to early to assess what the socio-political picture is going to look like in one or two years time. However, we do know that there are those who are in error, and who foster errors, when they claim that they know what will be the fate of the Palestinians, the Occupied Territories and of the State of Israel, following the documents that were signed by the Government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO): there are too many unknown factors, mainly the political, institutional reactions of the peoples, the sectors and the classes. Even so, we have no other choice than to try and asses the agreement and the different options it opens up, and, based on this assessment, determine a policy which puts the needs of the people first, alongside their ability to act in order to fulfil them.
1. The assessment of the
Accord
1.1 The Accord that was signed by Shimon Peres and Abu Mazen in Washington is not a good agreement, and does not do justice to the Palestine people. Abu Mazen himself will agree, without any difficulty, with this view. The Accord was dictated to the PLO leadership by Israel and Egypt, because the balance of forces have deteriorated since 1990. Even though it diverged in many ways from the Madrid formula, that was agreed on the eve of the Madrid Conference, it provided the framework for the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Washington. In this respect, we have to relate to the Oslo Accord as part of our overall reaction to the Madrid Conferen-
1.2 The Madrid Conference was the result of two developments, one positive and one negative: (a) the Intifada, which put an end to twenty-five years of status quo in the Occupied Territories, and forced Israel, the countries in the region, and the international community to put the question of the occupation and Palestinian nationality on the international agenda; (b) the Gulf War, that emphasised and gave expression to the regional balance of forces, in favour of the American imperialism and its allies, and against the Palestinian national
The combination of these two political developments put the Palestinian question on the agenda of the "New Order" in the region, but in a very limited way: taking the PLO out of the process, overlooking Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, and dropping the issue of self-determination.
The Palestinian national movement faced one choice only: to accept the formula that was dictated by Shamir and Baker, and to open negotiations with Israel under monstrous conditions, or, reject it and pay the price of conflict with most Arab governments. After weighing up the consequences, the PLO leadership accepted the American dictate.
1.3 The talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians did not go anywhere in the last year for three main reasons: the Israeli refusal to commit to a limited autonomy period as only a stage towards permanent withdrawal and fulfilment of Palestinian rights to self-determination, and the limited interpretation given by the Israeli delegation to "autonomy" However, despite these great conflicts, the Labour-Meretz government was interested in coming to an agreement as a result of the situation in the Occupied Territories and, especially, in the Gaza Strip which had turned into a second Lebanon during the years of the Intifada. The idea of "Gaza First" was an expression of the will, and the need, to remove the Israeli Defence Force from the Gaza morass, without giving up on the other issues.
1.4 The Oslo Accord is an Israeli victory, mainly because it is based on a Palestinian agreement to the idea of Gaza First. What did each side gain and give in order to reach this agreement?
The Government of Israel agreed to three concessions: in addition to Gaza First, it added the small territory of Jericho; it gave more substance to the meaning of autonomy, and gave more authority to the self-governing Palestinian area; and it dramatically turned-around from its previous policy of refusing to recognise the PLO. Even though the accepted assessment is that the PLO is only a shadow of its former self, compared withe the 1970s and 1980s, and that it has lost a lot of its significance. However, there is no way that its reduced standing can undermine the process, and the symbolic and political meaning of an Israeli recognition of an organisation that still represents the majority of the Arab Palestinian people.
In compensation of the acknowledgement, and with the alibi of Jericho, the PLO leadership agreed, with a small majority, to free Israel from Gaza, without any guarantees from the Rabin government, that after autonomy it will agree to a full withdrawal and to the establishment of a Palestinian State. Moreover, without any conclusions to major questions, such as — what will be the authority of Palestinian self-government? In addition, the PLO leadership agreed to a one sided normalisation, and the end to the fighting, while the key questions that deal with the occupation, self-government, the settlements and the refugees, were not solved and are still on the agenda for discussion.
There is no symmetry between the concessions that were made by Israel and the concessions that were made by the PLO leadership, and Itzak Rabin can
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International Viewpoint #252 January 1994 in justice be praised that in exchange for "pennies" he got a great deal more from the PLO.
1.5 Among Israel's most significant achievements is the Palestinian willingness to normalisation and cease-fire, and this is before the basic problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been solved. Problems such as the Right of Return were not solved, the occupation is still intact, and so what we have here is a one-sided normalisation; lack of symmetry and equality. There is nothing between this "normalisation" and a historical compromise.
1.6 The normalisation that the government of Israel seeks is not solely in the relations between Palestinians and Israelis, but mainly in the regional arena. The Oslo Accord is an important factor in Israel's attempt to establish its economic status in the area, to open new markets, and to use it as a jumping board to international "membership" of the area. In contrast to what is seen on the surface, the main part of the Oslo Accord is not that part which establishes Israeli control over the Palestinian economy, (because this control exists even more strongly during the occupation). Rather, it is meant to use the Israeli-Palestinian economic co-operation in order to tie regional markets to Israeli capitalism.
2. Our stand towards the
Accord
2.1 Against determinism
Most political interpreters, from both sides, who are involved in this subject, are giving us a one dimensional interpretation of the agreement and mainly of its future implementation: on the one side, the PLO leadership and the Israeli Peace Camp and the Israeli rightwing who believe that the agreement is leading unavoidably to the establishment of a Palestinian State (which they recognise as the fulfilment of the Palestinian peoples' right to self-determination); on the other side you have the Palestinian opposition, who are leaning on the publicised arguments of the Israeli establishment, and who state that this agreement cannot lead to a Palestinian State but that it will in fact end in a national disaster of the order of 1948.
We are rejecting this deterministic approach. Agreements express the basic balance of power, but the way in which they are applied depends on the balances of power at each stage of the process. 20
The Oslo Accord can create a situation in which the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories are in a better condition to campaign for their rights. The Oslo Accord arouses in Israeli society a sense of willingness towards substantial concessions, far above those that are in the Accords. Everything depends on the level of politicisation within the Palestinian masses, and to a lesser extent within the Israeli masses.
2.2 To activate, not to denounce
If there were political forces supported by the masses, and not just small groups detached from the masses, these forces could have disrupted the process even using terrorist activities. Then the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) would have fought with them against this agreement, and for a better one. This could have also been a sign that there is an alternative, because the masses do not usually campaign except in cases where there is a perspective with which they can identify. Therefore, we have to assume that the PLO leadership would have abstained from accepting the monstrous conditions imposed by the Israeli government. Today there is no enlightened force that can disrupt the agreement, and there is no political perspective that can be placed in front of the masses. The option of disrupting the agreement does not stand, mainly because of the limited forces at the disposal of
The RCL is not an organisation of political interpreters, nor is it an organisation of judges of history. Therefore our job is not to denounce the agreement, but to do everything in our power in order to create those conditions that will enable the Palestinians to defend their rights, and to navigate this new agreement towards their interests. This is our main task within the Israeli population, and this is what we can offer to the enlightened Palestinian forces who agree with our negative assessment of the agreement, and like us put the rights of the masses at the top of their agenda.
2.3 Our public task is not to denounce the agreement, but to express lack of confidence in the Rabin government and its readiness to truly act towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a full withdrawal, equality and fulfilment of self-determination. In other words, we have to lean on the support that we get from large parts of the Israeli public towards the agreement, and to clarify to the more politically aware the specific terms, which without them, the agreement will not be enough to o peace, and to recruit them to Among the most important terms are our assessments that there is a great need to dismantle the settlements and to defuse the settlers, the need to establish Palestinian sovereignty in east Jerusalem, and to change radically the terms of the occupation (to dismantle the undercover units, to stop the hunt for "wanted" people, to release prisoners, to bring back the deportees, to drastically ease the issuing of licences, to change the policy towards family re-unification, and
The fulfilment of these terms will not only drastically improve the state of the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories and strengthen their self confidence, but will also shake the timetable of the agreement and its boundaries. Our slogans should be: "A fulfilment of the Accord means breaking its boundaries", and, "Peace is too important to leave in the hands of the government. We will not let Rabin lose the chances for
2.4 Our other task is to convince the public, and first of all the more aware part of the public, that a true peace is peace between people, and not a lame agreement between leaderships.
Peace between peoples is much more binding than that which can be concluded between leaderships: it demands equality, it demands truth. Arafat and Rabin can sign an agreement that is based on blatant inequality, on humiliation and on erasing the past, but a true peace requires the exact opposite: mutual respect, facing the roots of the problems, willingness to accept responsibility of past crimes, and trying to fix whatever needs fixing without reference to balance of power.
This task obligates us to conduct a non-stop war with the racist and paternalistic approach of the ideologists and politicians from the Zionist left that are fulfilling once more the task of pioneers in the dissemination of racist poison to the public, and are aiming to recruit the public to support the agreement out of a sense of Israeli paternalism, emptying the vision of peace of its essence.
In opposition to this approach, which sees peace as an instrument for obtaining security and to ensure a Jewish majority, we present peace as a goal and a vision of co-existence based on equality and merging into the region; we give the word "peace" positive content, and present it as a qualitative step forward, and not as a return to the ideas of a "beautiful
International Viewpoint #252 January 1994 small Israel", which is closed to the
Arab world - the askenazi one, the undefeatable one. Against the strong wish of of the Zionist left to use peace for reconstruction of the national consensus and national unity within which the differences between classes are being undermined, as well as the ethnic and cultural uniqueness, we see in peace a new era in which we need to create new points of contact and unity, a strong alliance of all those that have been left out of decision making and the distribution of wealth — Israelis and Palestinians as one.
3. The Palestinian arena
3.1 The Palestinian people and the Palestinian nation are not in agreement in the way in which they asses the Israeli-Palestinian agreement. As we said before, only a few look upon it as a good agreement. Large numbers see it as a bad agreement, which was better off not born at all. This argument is not only between the Hamas and the PLO, or between Fatah and other movements. This argument divides Fatah itself from top to bottom, when central PLO figures from Mahmoud Darwish to Khaled and Hani El-Hassan are standing against Yasser Arafat's gamble. There is a reason to believe that outside of the Occupied Territories only a minority of the Palestinians are in favour of the agreement that was signed Abu Mazen.
The argument is not only about the chances of the agreement or the danger to the future of the Occupied Territories, but it is also about the future of the PLO and the Palestinian national struggle. Many Palestinians are afraid that the meaning of the agreement is atomisation of the Palestinian people, to localise national questions without a unifying framework, without a united strategy, and without one national perspective.
In the Occupied Territories it seems that the majority is pro-Arafat, but in contrast to the Israeli and international media it is not overall enthusiasm, but more of a no choice acceptance joined with hope and great fears. The Hamas, especially in the Gaza strip, has succeeded in expressing opposition on the street, but it was not as great as could have been expected. The secular organisations that oppose the agreement are almost nowhere to be seen. It looks like the opposition, religious and secular, is confused and cannot find a way to translate its rejection into an alternative strategy.
3.2 There is a dialectic relationship between the monopoly of Fatah on the street and the confusion that typifies the PLO sectors that oppose the agreement. On the face of it, it looks as if the Popular and Democratic Fronts have abandoned not only the street, but also all the national symbols: the flag, the joy of independence, the PLO as a symbol and as an organisation (boycotting the Central Council). As a result Fatah and the Shabiba can rule the street and appropriate the flag and the PLO. This monopoly only increases the alienation between the rejectionist organisations and the "street", and increase, in this respect, their isolation from the masses.
In this situation Fatah activists feel that the State in the making is theirs, and push even their partners in the negotiations, the Peoples' Party and Fida, into a corner.2 Acts of violence, mostly verbal, were typical of the celebration of the agreement; they were celebrating their rule more than their freedom. The flow towards the police recruitment agency, which are in fact Fatah agencies and not national agencies, is only one expression of this phenomenon which is raising great fears amongst many Palestinians, including within Fatah itself. It looks as if all the other organisations are standing still. This is also true of the popular organisations, the unions, the women's movement, the voluntary organisations
The firm connections that were developed during the last months between Palestinian capitalists and Israeli and foreign capitalists, at a time when nothing was done to express the needs and interests of the workers and the unemployed, is also a reason for concern among the Palestinian public and its
3.3 Is it really that the choice is between complete support for Arafat and the agreement he signed, and disappearing completely from the public eye? Is it a fact that beyond critical interpretation of the agreement there is nothing that we can do or offer to the Palestinian masses? To these questions, the Palestinian leftwing organisations should answer quickly, if they want to keep a role in their society.
With all the humility that is required from us as an organisation that is not a part of what is happening in the Occupied Territories — even though it took a big part in expressing unlimited solidarity with the national Palestinian struggle and cultivated strong friendly relations with a large number of activists from all national sectors — we see it as our duty to say to our Palestinian friends: "Do not drift away from the masses! Do not neglect the street! Even if you are right in your assessment of the Accord, the last word will always be that of the Palestinian masses, and they will establish whether they are moving towards independence or towards doom. They will determine whether the occupation will continue, even with a change of face, or whether the struggle for liberation will deepen. They will determine whether you will have a democratic society or a tyranny. They will determine whether the police and the capitalists will lead the future Palestinian society, or whether it will be lead by the popular organisations."
Whatever the assessment will be, whatever the chances and risks, the role of revolutionaries is to act, and to activate the masses around their interests in order to minimise the risks, and increase the chances. This struggle does not begin from point zero: a people which gave birth to, and maintained a five-year Intifada; which gave birth under occupation and oppression to unions, popular committees, women's movements and various volunteer organisations - such people are not impotent if they are presented perspectives on struggle.
As opposed to the most pessimistic forecasts the Accord opens up new horizons to popular political and social activities. Would it not be easier today to organise the political prisoners and their families in a mass struggle for amnesty? Would it not be easier today to organise thousands of families that suffer from citizenship problems in a struggle towards an immediate change in rules and regulations that prohibit family reunifications? Would it not be easier today to organise a struggle against the building of new Jewish neighbourhoods within the heart of Arab Jerusalem? Why would you not act so that people would go out onto the street and demand solutions to problems that affect all Palestinians regardless of their stand on the Accord?
This and more: is it not possible to organise all the unions around a core of claims that will assure the place and the rights of workers within the autonomous area? Is it not possible to organise the
1. Mahmoud Darwish is a famous Palestinian poet. Khaled and HaniEl-Hassan were founding members of Fatah, the leading current in the PLO. All three were members of the PLO leadership.
2. The Peoples' Party is the former Communist Party and Fida is a split from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
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International Viewpoint #252 January 1994 women's organisations, and the human rights within the autonomy? If the PLO leadership will join with these organisations in supporting their demands that would be great; and if not, these struggles will strengthen the masses in the struggle to protect their interests, with regard to the nascent Palestinian authority.
3.4 We do not know if this massive campaign will be able to radically change the framework of the Accord, or even parts of it. It is likely that if the campaign is bigger, it will make the PLO leadership more careful and less willing to make concessions, or damage the democratic rights of the masses. The best option is of course that the campaign will establish, once more, the place of the masses in the centre of the political arena, and will enable them to determine the essence of Accord in line with their own interests. A lesser option is to achieve the partial gains within the negotiations with Israel and within the character of the self-governing authority that will be created. The worst case would be if the balance of power is bad. Then the campaign will have achieved nothing, but will have served as a self-defence lesson for the people in their relations with the new authorities. It will uncover the nature of the ruling class, and will form a political opposition around a concrete core that the people can identify with.
3.5 The Palestinian masses need a political leadership thạt is armed with two very important strategic components: a policy of a unified front and a transitional programme.
A transitional programme is a collection of demands which you fight for (release of prisoners, democratic institutions, disarmament of the settlers or, if not, organising armed citizens' militias) and which answers the needs of a large of the masses, without them necessarily agreeing to our political assessment. What is important is that the demands are considered achievable, right and
This transitional programme has to be a part of a national democratic programme, which has at its centre the demand for a legislative body within the autonomy. It should be a representative body drawn from all the existing political currents in the Occupied Territories.
The policy of the united front: the condition for success in this struggle is the ability to unify the "customers" of the different claims, without connection 22 to their political alignments or to their political assessments. In this we mean that the appeal should be to all organisations, including those that are connected to Fatah, to the unions, to the women's organisations, and so forth. Only a policy of a united front on the democratic claims could bring mass support in the present process, and bring the PLO leao he angel he lians of democrats within Fatah and the rest of the organisations that support the Accord, mainly among the working class and women.
4. Tasks
4.1 The first task for RCL activists is to work against all the boundaries that stand in the way of the fulfilment of the Accord within the framework of an enlightened interpretation. A battle against the settlements, to free all prisoners, against the annexation of Arab Jerusalem, for a radical change in the relationship between Israel and the occupied Palestinian population.
These battles can unify those who see in the Accord a break through and those who see in it an Israeli dictate and a Palestinian surrender. To both groups we say: "Whatever your assessment of the Accord, if no-one deals with the settlers and the settlements, if the hunt for the wanted is not stopped, if all the Palestinian prisoners are not freed, this Accord is doomed; let us act together to demand that the government acts on these issues, because without these steps there will never be peace between Israelis and Palestinians."
As long as the occupation continues - and the Accord's supporters agree that it will continue for the next few years even if it will change somewhat — our duty is to fight against every violation of human rights, both in the territories under direct occupation and within the autonomous area. These tasks will continue to be carried out with our friends in Gush Salom (the Peace Block) and with all the other parts of the peace movement that are ready to take part.
4.2 Our second task, and it is a unique one for the RCL, is in the dissemination of information: to reveal the internal limitations of the Accord and what has to be done in order to give content to a true Israeli-Palestinian peace. Peace demands a brave look backwards and a readiness to understand what those "hundred years of conflict" were, what the reasons that gave birth to it were, and what the characteristics of the Israeli-Palestinian relations were during those hundred years. To raise the topic of expropriation of land and deportations, the right of return, and the right
Peace requires a brave look forward, with a vision of a different relationship between peoples; relations that are built on equality, on an attempt to correct injustices, a readiness to merge into the Arab region — not as the beach-head of the West, but as partners with equal rights and obligations.
In this mission we will need to meet head-on without compromise the paternalistic attitudes, the racism and the narrow-mindedness of the Zionist left, to stand against the values of separation and ethnic cleansing, to stand for the values of partnership, solidarity and coexistence. In these aspects we have to absolutely reject any attempt to compare between the settlers and the Israeli Palestinians, between robbers with blood on their hands and local inhabitants whose right to live here is unconditional.
4.3 More than ever there is an importance to the Israeli-Palestinian partnership. Both police forces and the capitalists are building for themselves a joint future, and together determining our future. To their side and against them we have to create a partnership between peoples, women, human rights organisations, workers and activists. For this task we do not set any limits: every co-operation that will enable us to advance human and peoples' rights will be blessed, and first of all with the PLO. In this sense we have to compliment the activity of Fatah towards systematic cooperation with the radical branch of the Israeli peace camp and reject the refusal of the Palestinian leftwing fronts to cultivate links with the Israeli forces that are fighting against the occupation.
Our support for the Arab Palestinian struggle for self-determination and their right to build an independent State is not conditional on the class of its leaders. We will support the PLO as long as there is an occupation and as long as the PLO leads the Palestinian people in its struggle against the occupation. At the same time, our support of the PLO is a critical support, and we are not blind to the attempts of its leadership to merge into the American "New Order", including the price of its being turned into the arm that will oppress the Palestinians on behalf of the Zionists.
Despite this, we should not relate to them as enemies and conduct future potential battles at the expense of the present battles. The PLO signed a bad
Accord with Israel, but it did so as the representative of an oppressed people and it will have to fight for a long time to reach its goals: the goals which made it the representative of the Palestinian people.
The forecasts that the Palestinian Authority will be an oppressive one are forecasts, even if they are well based. Today the occupation is not over, the Palestinian people are not free yet, and the PLO occupation is not over, the Palestinian people are not free yet, and the PLO and its leadership represent it in the battlefield that is mainly a diplomatic and political one facing the Israeli occupation authorities.
4.4 The RCL will be very active against the attempt by the authorities, or from within the peace camp, to turn a blind eye to supporters of the Accord on the Palestinian side "removing" opponents, secular or religious. This turning of a "blind eye" does not assist the Israeli peace camp nor the PLO in advancing the peace, on the contrary, it will strengthen those who believe that peace can be imposed - an attitude whose end product is to bury the hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians for long generations.
4.5 In addition we have to build in Israel, in co-operation with the Palestinian left, an alliance of all those forces that never considered the end of the occupation as their sole goal, but saw it as part of an overall battle to free humanity from all kinds of oppression and exploitation, to free the region from imperialism and to free humanity from fear of extinction. We did not fight against the occupation only so that the Palestinian flag can fly above the Temple Mount mosques: we did not fight so that the Palestinian authorities will continue the work of the Israeli or the Jordanian authorities; we did not act so that capitalists will be able to gain more at the expense of workers from both peoples.
We fought so that on the historical Palestinian land there would be established a democratic secular bi-national society whose borders will be as symbolic as possible, and that the two peoples, the Arab Palestinians and the Jewish Israeli will be able to live in co-operation, solidarity, full equality, and in mutual respect.
We fought, long before others, not only for national independence but also for democracy, the dignity of men and women, their freedom and well being This struggle will not end with a signature on an Accord, not even when the occupation ends. The vision of peace and the vision of socialism is one to us, and there is a lot that needs to be done until that vision is fulfilled. *
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DOSSIER
ISRAELI-PLO ACCORDS