March Against Zionist War and Oppression
Is the Zionist monolith cracking? The Begin government's policy of mass repression is provoking unprecedented reactions inside the Jewish population of Israel. The activity of the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit, the Palestinian university on the West Bank closed by Israeli government officials, is a good example of this. Hundreds of activists have been mobilized by the Committee and its activities have had a wide impact in university and intellectual THERE circies.
The most significant expression of these changes in the Israeli Jewish population was the massive March 27 protest in Tel Aviv. Between thirty and forty thousand persons demonstrated their opposition to the repression in the occupied territories. A good indication of the mood of the crowd can be gauged from the fact that the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit sold some 6,000 buttons of the Committee, which carry the colors of the strictly illegal Palestinian flag, something which would have been unthinkable a few years back.
Maia Edri, a leader of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, Israeli section of the Fourth International), discusses the current situation in the interview below. The LCR is popularly known by the name of its newspaper, Matzpen.
This interview was given to Fernando Zamora in Paris on April 5. The transcript has been translated and edited by IV
Question. In what political context did the recent demonstrations over repression in the West Bank Arab communities arise?
Answer. There is a very deep political crisis in Israel today. Basically, it reflects the inability of the Israeli bourgeoisie to continue to maintain the principal imperialist fortress in the Middle East, and to crush the Palestinian people as an organized political entity, as was called for by the Camp David Accords.
This political crisis combines with an economic one. Israeli capitalism is unable to offer the people security, either physical or economic.
While it is true that we have entered a period of worldwide capitalist crisis in general, in Israel this crisis assumes particularly acute forms, because 60% of the national budget goes for the military. That is, the political needs of Israeli capitalism make it impossible to achieve lasting economic stability.
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March 27 Demonstration in Tel Aviv. (DR)
The 1967 War was Israel's last major victory. From 1948 to 1967, Zionism reinforced its state, formed its bourgeoisie and its working class, and expelled the Palestinians from their lands. And with the conquest of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, it dealt a severe blow to the Arab revolution. At the same time, it opened up new markets for its goods as well as sources of cheap unskilled labor,
After the 1973 war, it became evident that the whole Zionist project was beginning to break down at every level.
The Palestinian people organized massively, and they are waging an ever stronger struggle ggainst Zionist and imperialist oppression. The economic crisis is forcing the bourgeoisie to deny the workers even the crumbs it offered them before. War has become a constant danger weighing on the people who live in Israel. And the first signs of opposition to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands are beginning to appear among the Jewish population.
An ideological crisis is beginning to develop. The sacred truths of Zionism are starting to crumble. It cannot be denied any longer that the "Palestinian People Lives and Fights. " And the claim "Israel is the safest place in the world for a Jew" has become associated with the remote past.
In general terms, these are the roots of the present crisis.
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ANOTHER
ISRAEL
Q. What concrete signs are there that the Jewish population is starting to oppose the occupation of Arab lands?
A. Since the demise of the Camp David Accords, Israel is looking for any opportunity to launch a new major war against the Arab world.
In July 1981, the Israeli government bombed the south of Lebanon. And it had to withdraw and sign a cease fire with an organization whose existence it had refused to recognize--the Palestine Liberation Organization. This step was taken not simply because of the U.S. pressure that was applied at the time but also because the Jewish population itself was against a war.
The people of the three largest cities in the north of Israel, who would have suffered directly from such a war, did not line up behind the government, as they would have in the past. They left their homes en masse.
In December 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights and tried to force the native population to accept Israeli citizenship. This was an obvious provocation to force Syria into a war. The immediate response was a general strike in the four Syrian towns in the area. Although these towns were sealed off by the Israeli military and subjected to a total siege, this strike is continuing into its eighth week. The
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Israeli army has not been able to break it, although these towns have only thirteen thousand inhabitants.
The fighting spirit of these people is extraordinary. They have said that they are not going to give up their Syrian citizenship under any condition.
At the same time, the Israeli government provoked a confrontation with the Palestinian people by setting up a so-called civilian administration in the occupied territories. They claimed that they were replacing the occupation government with an authentic Palestinian leadership. In fact, the new administration was made up of armed gangs of collaborators with the Zionist government.
Since Professor Milson became head of the West Bank administration in November 1981, the University of Bir-Zeit was shut down, the mayors of Ramalah, Nablus, and El-Bim were removed, and more than thirty Palestinians have been killed, most of them youth under the age of twenty-five. Hundreds of persons have been arrested. Palestinian public property has been confiscated.
The West Bank cities and towns have been put under state of siege fifteen times. This is the balance sheet of the civilian administration that the government mouthpieces said was going to put an end to military government by the occupation authorities.
It should be noted that the struggle that is taking place today on the West Bank has a crucial political importance not simply because it reflects the conflict between the government and the democratic aspirations of the people.
The demonstration that was organized for "Peace Now" went far beyond the political line of its organizers, who limited themselves to criticizing the government for following a policy not conducive to the stability of the Jewish state.
The Committee for Solidarity with the University of Bir-Zeit is a movement that works in the major Israeli cities and fights for the national rights of the Palestinians. This movement participated in the demonstration and gave it its political character.
Its main slogans were "Stop the Occupation, " "Golan is Syrian, " "We Don't Want Another War, " "Army Out of the West Bank, " and "The Elected Palestinian Leadership is Not Going to be Defeated." The majority of the demonstrators marched under these slogans although they were not members of the Bir-Zeit committee.
While it is true that most of the demonstrators were students and youth, it is important to note that the workers also, although more slowly, are beginning to take up the same questions and raise criticisms of the government.
Q. What are the major political forces involved in the movement against Zionist expansionism and repression?
In the recent period, all the national political organizations have increased their strength considerably. Along with this, we have the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit, which is a united-front organization. It encompasses all the left organizations, including the Israeli Communist Party.
Joint work of the entire left on a stable basis and on such fundamental issues as war and the Palestinian question is a completely new factor in Israeli political history. This indicates the importance of this movement, which is continually growing in numbers and
The Peace Now movement has been undergoing a serious crisis. Its leadership, still tied to the Labor Party, remains within a bourgeois framework. But the masses of youth attending the demonstrations it calls are going beyond the line of the leadership and taking more and more radical positions.
Q. What role is the Israeli section of the Fourth International playing in this process?
A. The Revolutionary Communist League of Israel is still a small group, but lately we have considerably expanded our work, taking advantage of this growing political ferment.
The main political axis of our work today is opposing war and the Israeli policies toward the Arab population. This is the context in which we place the other struggles that are unfolding today in Israel. We do work in the factories where we have comrades. We work in the secondary schools and universities through our Jewish-Arab youth group.
In the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit, we play a decisive role. We are active in the Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem groups. This work is already bearing fruit for the organization, not only in the sense that because of our activity we have gained respect but we are also beginning to recruit from it.
Q. You said that you thought the previous wave of demonstrations represented a breakthrough, a first major breach in Zionist political domination of the Jewish masses. What do you think is going to happen now in the immediate period ahead?
A. The weakness and isolation of the bourgeoisie and its isolation within the coun try and internationally will increase. It has no answer to the central political problems that exist today. But the weakness of the Israeli bourgeoisie will not diminish the danger of war. On the contrary, a major new war is the only solution that either Likud (Begin's party) or the Labor Party can see. The bourgeoisie has no resilience.
At the same time, the Arab population in Israel and the occupied territories is more and more united in struggle against the Zionist government as the March 30 Day of the Land actions showed.
The struggle of the Palestinians is having an increasing influence on the Jewish population. Opposition to war and oppression of the Arab people can become a growing mass movement, particularly among Jewish youth, as the danger of war becomes increasingly evident.
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