Holocaust 2

The latest escalation of war in the Middle East is a tragic reminder that nationalism, always diversionary , is often deadly. There is sadly, however, little reason to think that it will represent the final nail in the coffin of Zionism as a movement of progressive, peace-loving, nation-building pioneers. Yes, people believe this myth in the same way as others seeking eternal life become 'martyrs'.

History reminds us that this is an ongoing campaign of genocide. This is not the first time that workers from Israel have been instructed to kill their fellows across an artificial border in order to end the 'Palestinian problem once and for all.' The armed might of the Israeli state was for example, used back in 1982 against the PLO in Lebanon. In early August of that year the Canadian ambassador surveyed separate areas of Beirut and declared that "this would make Berlin of 1944 look like a tea party". Then as now the International Red cross reported that the vast majority of the casualities are civilians. Unlike then, our tv screens are showing far fewer images of the carnage and this is particularly true in the USA as only a handful of cable companies risk supplying Al-Jazerra, the one international television service with a base in Gaza. We can only speculate that with the blanket ban on others reporting from within Gaza, Israel wants to keep minimise screening of the ongoing slaughter.

As ever, when there is killing to be done, God's rep on earth is to be found sanctifying it. Just as God's Anglicans bless the killers as they set off for Afganistan, the British Chief Rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, at a rally in London yesterday stated "We say to those who criticise Israel: you want Palestinian children to grow up with hope; so do we." . "We care for life. This is why we say to Hamas: stop killing the Palestinian future." Yet a thousand and counting workers have been denied any kind of future. And, of course, the mad mul-lhas encourage mass murder as the way to eternal life. But expecting rationality from the religious is as futile as trying to hold a seminar with the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

The curse of nationalism is not new. Let it be clear that unlike certain anti-Zionists, socialists do not oppose the tunnel-vision mentality of nationalism only when it is Jewish. To us, the flag-waving, triggerhappy Zionists are no more ignorant and abhorrent than those who have swallowed the diversionary, nationalist message of Hamas or Fatah. Socialists do not take sides in national conflicts because it is not our aim to support one or other of the competing capitalist or would-be capitalist factions, each of which seeks its own territories and exploitable populations. No socialist will ever fight to defend a border - we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states.

But there is a bitter irony about Zionist nationalism. In Dachau, the site of the old Nazi murder camp, a permanent exhibition stands as testimony to the atrocities cornmitted in modem times against miliions of Jews. That the survivors of such persecution sought refuge in a nation of their own - a country which would never persecute or exterminate anyone and would be free of the perverse national chauvinism on which Nazism was based - is not difficult to understand. In Israel, and here in Britain, not a few Zionists are now beginning to ask themselves the question: "How can it be that the country created by the holocaust is now inflicting similar misery on people who are just as defenceless as the Jews in Europe had been?" Same of them in 1982 blamed Begin, just as those today condemn the present government. Others say that the Hamas has pushed the Israeli government to such measures. The truth is that those who saw a solution in Zionist nationalism - in having their own laws, prisons, borders, army and weapons of destruction =-were naive. Their form of nationalism is no less aggressive or bigoted than is ever the case under a system of society where the laws of the jungle are presented as being the rules of civilised conduct. Every nation's flag is dripping with the blood of its enemies; every ruling dass pays for its power in other people's lives.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" opined Orwell. Getting to and telling the truth about Hamas' origins is not an easy task. Wikipedia, for example, is unsure as to when the group was born: 1976, 1987 or 1988? Justin Raimondo in his article 'Hamas, Son of Israel. The Israelis birthed and nuttured their Islamist nemesis' traces them back to the late 1970's. But such debate is rather academic, although it has to be said that this is not the first time that such a 'son' has turned in the fashion of Frankenstein's monster on its creator. From earlier editions of our journal, the Socialist Standard, one can glean that Hamas has taught children as young as four how to be suicidal terrorists and that such activites are funded by Iran and Syria. Furthermore, workers are screwed whether under the yoke of Fatah or Hamas.

The solution for one Palestinian Authority worker: "I want to educate my kids to hate Israel. If I can't do something maybe my kids can. I will educate them to fight the Israelis." No doubt s/he would give this woman a top grade in hatred:
"Go back to the oven," the woman in her hijab in Fort Laderdale, Fla., yelled to the Jewish Americans demonstrating their support for Israel. "You need a big oven, that's what you need." Yet, left-wing parties would have us support such tragic, crass ignorance, get behind Hamas, go on marches and exchange obscenities with the pro-Israel camp. Socialists do not care who broke the ceasefire or which side has the more effective killing machine. Socialists see the bigger, on-going worldwide conflict - the class war - and will not succumb to the poison of nationalism.

Nationalism can never be a solution to the problems of oppression: it was not for the Jews; it would not be for the Palestinians. The problem is class, not national, racial, or religious origins. As a class, workers have no country. The British do not own Britain, the majority of Israelis have no significant economic stake in Israel, the impoverished Arabs do not share their exploiters' national wealth. There are two classes in society: those who possess without producing and those who produce without possessing. Wars are fought over the interests of the capitalists and would-be capitalists. In the 1940s an aspirant Israeli ruling class, represented by such vicious thugs as the Stern gang (of which the Israeli Foreign Minister of 1982 was a member), used terrorist tactics to secure their goal. Having obtained power violently, who could have expected the Israeli: ruling dass to have maintained power except by the continued use of violence? Israeli workers identify with the aims of their rulers - they see their national identity as more important than their class identity with Arab and other workers. In this they are dangerously mistaken.

The socialist solution to the Middle East conflict is not a piecemeal policy. We do not advocate re-drawing the border or politieal deals or the exchange of one ruling class for another one. These amount to mere rearrangements of the capitalist furniture. Only when Israeli and Arab workers join the worldwide movement for a society without class ownership, nations or arrnies will the war finally cease.

This is not a pious hope for the future. Workers are dying in Gaza and there is every sign that more will be killed. What is now a local war could turn into something rather bigger. Who will stop the killing once and for all - bloody Blair, Ismail Haniyeh or Ehud Olmertt? To expect this to happen is like hoping for Bush in his dying days and Ahmadinejad to shake hands, make up and agree a new nuclear policy. We leave such dreams to the Utopians who are fond of calling themselves Realists. For socialists, it is clear that if there is ever to be peace it is those who are the sitting targets of war who must actively pursue it.

Post from an original article by S. Coleman