March 17, 2009

HANNAH FLEURY'S analysis of the objective interests of Israeli workers in her letter "What will win justice for Palestine?" is spot on.

I think it's crucial for Palestinian solidarity activists to have clarity on that question in order to build a strong boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement. We need to be able to persuade well-meaning allies on the left against such soft Zionism.

I think part of the difficulty is that Israel is a colonial enterprise with unique historical qualities. Those of us who unhesitatingly fight anti-Judaism and champion the self-determination of oppressed nationalities get accused of inconsistency when it comes to the Jewish state, and baseless accusations of anti-Semitism often follow.

There is much to be said about this. However, deciding on how to relate to Israeli workers should take account of the actual history of the workers' movement in Israel. The Zionist labor movement led the colonization of Palestine. A racist collective approach to settling the land was articulated as the best way to effect Palestinian dispossession. The "socialist" veneer of the kibbutzim was engineered to motivate this goal. Mapai (the Israeli Workers' Party, forerunner of Labor) and its Histadrut (the Israeli federation of trade unions) were needed by the weak capitalist class to oversee construction of the economy and state.

This collaboration was called "constructive socialism." It has as much in common with internationalist workers' power as Germany's "National Socialism" did.

This class partnership has been at the root of what binds the left and right wings to the supremacy of the Zionist security state. Needless to say, Palestinians face extreme discrimination in employment. There is zero contradiction in progressives supporting Palestinian demands for their rights in direct opposition to the Zionism of Israeli workers.

It is our job to blast any liberal veneer from decades of racist murder.

Silas Wain, Carlisle, Pa.