Struggle for a Democratic

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and Secular Palestine SOCIALIST ACTION SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1988 7 By RALPH SCHOENMAN In May 1948, nearly 40 years ago, the settler-colonial state of Israel was established through the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland. Through sustained massacres, the Palestinians were dispersed in the neighboring Arab states, where they were consigned to refugee camps.

Twenty years after the establishment of the Israeli state, the Palestinian resistance movement formulated its demand for self-determination in the call for the replacement of the Israeli state with an independent, unitary Palestine.

In 1968, the leadership wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fateh, set forth the program for the establishment of a "democratic, secular Palestine." This slo gan called for the dismantling of the Zionist Israeli state and the establishment of a new state in Palestine in which Jews, Christians, and Arabs would live as equals without discrimination.

What was notable about this brave proposal was that (1) it categorically rejected any accommodation with or recognition of the Zionist state; and (2) it rejected the proposal for a Palestinian "mini-state" on the West Bank and Gaza.

P.L.O. Chairman Yasir Arafat described his proposal as follows in a remarkable biography written by journalist Alan Hart:

"We were saying 'no' to the Zionist state, but we were saying 'yes' to the Jewish people of Palestine. To them we were saying, 'You are welcome to live in our land, but on one condition-You must be prepared to live among us as equals, not as dominators.

"I myself have always said that there is only one guarantee for the safety and security of the jewish people in Palestineand that is the friendship of the Arabs among whom they live." (quoted in "Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker," Sidgwick and Jackson, 1985, p. 275)

"'Yes" to Jewish people"

A document submitted by Arafat's Fateh organization to the Second World Congress on Palestine in September 1970 spells out the profile of a democratic and secular Palestine even more clearly. The 1970 Fateh document states:

"Pre-1948 Palestine-as defined during the British mandate—is the territory to be liberated... It should be quite obvious at this stage that the new Palestine discussed here is not the occupied West Bank or the Gaza Strip or both. These are areas occupied by the Israelis since June 1967. The homeland of the Palestinians usurped and colonized in 1948 is no less dear or important than the part occupied in 1967.

"Besides, the very existence of the racist oppressor state of Israel, based on the expulsion and forced exile of part of its citizens, even from one tiny village, is unacceptable to the revolution. Any arrange"All the Jews, Moslems, and Christians living in Palestine or forcibly exiled from it will have the right to Palestinian citizenship... This means that all Jewish Palestinians—at the present Israelis-have the same rights provided, of course, that they reject Zionist racist chauvinism and Ralph Schoenman is the executive director of the Campaign to End All Aid to IsraellFor A Democratic Secular Palestine, which sponsored the ad which appeared in the March 13, 1988, New York Times. (See page 11.J fully agree to live as Palestinians in the new Palestine...It is the belief of the revolution that the majority of the present Israeli Jews will change their attitudes and will subscribe to the new Palestine, especially after the oligarchic state machinery, economy, and military establishment are destroyed."

Role of Soviet bureaucracy The Soviet bureaucracy reacted sharply to Fateh's attempt to transform the P.L.O. into a revolutionary movement with a program and strategy aimed at mobilizing the masses and winning them for a revolutionary transformation of a settler regime.

According to Alan Hart, whose biography of Arafat was "written in cooperation with Yasir Arafat and the top leadership of the P.L.O.," the Soviet leaders told Arafat that they were fully committed to the existence of the state of Israel and that they had not the slightest intention of supporting or encouraging Palestinian militance or military capacity. (ibid., p. 279)

Two of Fateh's principal leaders, Khalid al Hassan and Abu Jihad, went to Moscow to explain Fateh's program. They left Moscow, to cite Khalid al Hassan, "With the clear impression that the Palestinians would not receive Soviet support for their cause until they were ready to accept Israel's existence inside the borders as they were on the eve of the [June 1967] Six Day War." (ibid., p. 277)

"Because we were ourselves beginning to be educated about the reality of international politics," reflects Hani al Hassan, Khalid's brother, "we realized that we couldn't expect to advance our cause without the support of at least one of two superpowers. We had knocked on the door of the United States and its Western allies and we had received no answer, so we wanted to try with the Soviets. We had no choice." (ibid., p. 278)

Retreat to "mini-state" position Fateh's leaders soon lost all confidence in the possibility of sustaining the political program which they had once proclaimed-that of a democratic and secular Palestine for which they had planned to struggle by mobilizing the Palestinian and Jewish masses.

In February 1974, a P.L.O. working paper was formulated which retreated from this program. The paper proposed "To establish a national authority on any lands that can be wrested from Zionist occupation." (ibid., p. 379)

Arafat and the majority of his Fateh colleagues were now committed to working for a negotiated "settlement" which required the Palestinian people to accept the loss "for all time" of 70 percent of their original homeland in exchange for a "mini-state" on the West Bank and Gaza.

Arafat openly acknowledged that the entire Palestinian people were opposed to this policy. Alan Hart writes:

"Arafat and most of his senior colleagues in the leadership knew they needed time to sell it to the rank and file of the liberation movement. If, in 1974, Arafat and his colleagues had openly admitted the true extent of the compromise they were prepared to make, they would have been repudiated and rejected by an easy majority of the Palestinians." (emphasis added; ibid., p. 379)

Concealing secret diplomacy Arafat was now embarked upon a course in which he could not tell the truth to his own people about the political line which he and his colleagues had taken. The words are those of Yasir Arafat:

"Our tragedy at the time was that the world refused to understand there were two aspects, two sides, to the question of what was possible. First, there was the question of what it was possible for the Palestinians to achieve in practical terms—given the fact that the iwo (emphasis added) superpowers were committed to Israel's existence...

"But there was also the question of what it was possible for the Palestinian leadership to persuade its people to accept. When a people is claiming the return of 100 percent of its land, it's not so easy for leadership to say, 'No, you can take only 30 percent." (ibid.)

The disparity between the public posture and the private practice became the touchstone of P.L.O. political practice in this period, with considerable confusion and demoralization among the masses arising from it. Arafat is frank about this:

"You say to me and you are right, that our public position on the compromise we were prepared to make was ambiguous for many years while we were educating our people about the need for compromise. But I must also tell you that our real position was always known to the governments of the world, including the government of Israel "How? From 1974, even from the end of 1973, certain of our people were officially authorized to maintain secret contacts with Israelis and with important people in the West. Their responsibility was to say in secret what at the time we could not say in public. " (emphasis added, ibid.)

Isolating the P.L.O. "left"

This clandestine policy was carried out for five years, from 1974 to 1979, with neither awareness nor endorsement by the elected members of the Palestine National Council. It required diplomatic maneuvering and lobbying.

It also required, to quote Alan Hart, "out-maneuvering and outwitting those [in the P.L.O. "left"] who were opposed to the 'mini-state"" Hart explains:

"If he had been put to the test of actual negotiations by Israel between 1974 and 1979...Arafat could not have delivered peace on the basis of the 'mini-state' formula without splitting the P.L.O." (ibid.)

But inducing the "left" to acquiesce proved to be like pushing on an open door. And by the time of the 1979 Pales(continued on page 8)

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=. Democratic-Secular Palestine 'Recognition of the Israeli sti would invalidate retroactively right of resistance of the oppressed [Palestinians].' New Socialist Action pamphlet! 8 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1988 (continued from page 7) tine National Congress, George Habash and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) had endorsed the "mini-state" plan. Indeed, by 1979, all components of the P.L.O. had adopted the call for a "mini-state" on the West Bank and Gaza.

From 1974 on, all wings of the P.L.O. demonstrated they were incapable of formulating a strategy independent of the rotten capitalist regimes of the region. The P.L.O. leaders at one moment curried favor with imperialism and its agents, the country-selling regimes of the Arab East, and at another indulged in random acts of force. Each course was designed, misguidedly, to induce imperialism into endorsing the establishment of a Palestinian "mini-state.

Indecent exceptionalism

There are over five million settlers of European origin in South Africa. The Afrikaaner population and those of British descent have lived in South Africa for many generations. Yet very few people, let alone those purporting to be advocates of self-determination for Blacks in South Africa, propose two states—a European white settler state with guaranteed security alongside a demilitarized African state.

If this is understood in the case of South Africa, why this indecent exceptionalism when it comes to Israel?

Those who would foist upon the Palestinian people the demand that they recognize an apartheid state-which they must do in exchange for a "mini-state" on the West Bank-know full well that the national rights of a colonized people do not extend to their colonizers.

In reality, the supporters of Palestinian human rights who urge acceptance and recognition of the Israeli state are, however disguised, acting as lawyers for the colonial state in Palestine. Their advocacy carries the pseudo-left cover of self-determination for "both" people, but this specious employment of the principle of self-determination translates into a covert call for amnesty for Israel.

Many so-called realists argue that Palestinian acknowledgment of the "right" of apartheid Israel to exist will hasten the day when a Palestinian state would be permitted by the Zionists to come into being. But this rationalization does not carry much conviction. The Zionists do not depend upon verbal acceptance for their state, but upon armed force.

For Palestinians to accept, recognize, and thereby legitimize the murderous conquest of their land would merely permit the Zionists to contend that 40 years of intransigence on the part of the oppressed are responsible for their suffering. It would sanction the claim that Israel was a legitimate construct from the start.

Rather than acting as a bridge toward the establishment of a unitary Palestine, as some in the P.L.O. leadership argue today, the establishment of a "mini-state" on the West Bank-and the recognition of the Zionist state, which is a precondition for its creation-would represent a giant obstacle in its path.

Recognition of the Israeli state would invalidate retroactively the right of resistance of the oppressed and would provide cover for the Zionist demand that only Palestinians who had capitulated and sanctioned Israel in the past, accepting its leThis pamphlet by Ralph Schoenman, former executive director of the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation and author of the U.N. report 'Prisoners of Israel, discusses the origins and sordid history of Zionism.

With thorough documentation, it shatters the myths that color the consciousness of most people in this society about Zionism.

'The Hidden History of Zionism' 104 pages. Price: $3.00. Send $1.00 for postage. Order today. gitimacy, have Israel.

What of the Palestinians who live inside the 1967 borders, and what of the Jews themselves? Would apartheid end in South Africa, or the state be transformed, by recognizing its right to exist?

"Serving Israel's interests"

Despite the obvious answers to all these questions, there are, nonetheless, an increasing number of people who, today, are pushing for an international peace conference on the Middle East with the goal of establishing a Palestinian "mini-state" alongside the Israeli state.

A revealing example of the dangers for the Palestinian revolution of such a proposal comes from the pen of Jerome M. Segal, a research scholar at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Jewish Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

Segal, who represents the "left" wing of the Zionist movement, writes the following in a Feb. 16, 1988, Los Angeles Times article titled, "A Palestinian state serves interests of Israelis, too:"

"Ironically, of all the alternatives an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is the one solution that best serves Israeli security...

"A Palestinian state would be the fullest possible satisfaction of the demands of Palestinian nationalism... It would win the support of the P.L.O. and is the only likely basis on which the P.L.O. would formally abandon the right to return to the land and villages lost in 1948. As the recognized embodiment of the Palestinian cause, only the P.L.O. can compromise in the name of the Palestinians...

"A Palestinian state would be a demilitarized mini-state. It would be completely Firmed M.rd.

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LIBERATION THEOLOGY Amen • lar • Mex... enclosed by Israel on one side and Jordan on the other. No military supplies or forces could reach it without passing through Israel or Jordan.

"The foreign policy of such a mini-state would be dominated by its links to the Israeli economy and by its national-security realities. In the event of a war, its very existence would be in jeopardy... Israel would not be seriously threatened if hostilities broke out...

"For Israel, a Palestinian state is not a charming prospect. It is simply better than the alternatives."

Segal's call for what amounts to a "rump Palestinian state in the West Bank" is a mockery of Palestinian self-determination. The rights of the Palestinian people can never be advanced in this way.

For a socialist Middle East The alternative before us is in the upsurge of the Palestinian masses. The struggle awaits a political strategy which poses the need to dismantle the Zionist state of Israel and to establish a democratic and secular Palestine. Such a strategy also entails a challenge to the country-selling regimes of the Arab East, which stand in the way of the struggles of the Arab masses.

A P.L.O. faithful to its original program would include in its leadership those anti-Zionist Jews who have fought the colonial-settler state. In this way, the Jewish masses themselves would be able to see who really speaks for them, and who offers them a way out of perpetual war, insecurity, and deprivation.

The Palestinian revolutionary movement can only advance by hammering out a new strategy based on combining the Palestinian national struggle with the struggle of the workers and peasants of the whole Middle East for liberation from both capitalist and imperialist domination.

не 130 November 73. 1987 10 85. 82. C$2 50, 127г Subscribe today To International Viewpoint! biweekly magazine published under the ispices of the Fourth International. Introictory sub: 3 issues for $3. Six-month subription: $25. One-year subscription: $47. 3435 Army St. Rm. 308, S.F., CA 94410.

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MAZA • Palestine f the Israeli state e retroactively the ¡istance of the [Palestinians].' gitimacy, right enclosed by Israel on one side and Jordan on the other. No military supplies or forces could reach it without passing through Israel or Jordan.

"The foreign policy of such a mini-state would be dominated by its links to the Israeli economy and by its national-security realities. In the event of a war, its very existence would be in jeopardy... Israel would not be seriously threatened if hostilities broke out...

"For Israel, a Palestinian state is not a charming prospect. It is simply better than the alternatives."

Segal's call for what amounts to a "rump Palestinian state in the West Bank" is a mockery of Palestinian self-determination. The rights of the Palestinian people can never be advanced in this way.

For a socialist Middle East The alternative before us is in the upsurge of the Palestinian masses. The struggle awaits a political strategy which poses the need to dismantle the Zionist state of Israel and to establish a democratic and secular Palestine. Such a strategy also entails a challenge to the country-selling regimes of the Arab East, which stand in The following are excerpts from an interview with Riyad H. Mansour, deputy permanent observer to the United Nations of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The interview was conducted by Socialist Action reporter Jonathan Halabi.

Question: All that is going on in Palestine raises the question of what sort of program you have. Twenty years ago, the P.L.O. was raising the slogan of a democratic, secular Palestine.

Answer: The P.L.O. has not abandoned that idea. On the contrary, the P.L.O. indicates that this is its strategic, ultimate solution. But since 1973, it has developed a transitional, specific solution moving in The following are excerpts from a letter the direction of the democratic state.

That transitional solution is the attainment of inalienable national rights for the Palestinian people. This means that refugee people should be allowed to return to their homeland. This is whether they were in the area before 1967 or after 1967.

An peopli establ state leader The Palest tine w devel to des demar [Th two p oppre domir sensit cheris Jewist Que what Palest West 1 partial Ans people person Haifa. things The politi people Palest regaro regard that sti Bec move: establi IsraelJews.. 3 mill about outsid Israeli:

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