The Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. Modern war is waged by economic might, and Israel with its GDP of around $110 billion (in 2000), whereas the Palestinian territories have a GDP of $4.2 billion (in 2000): the former has the capacity to routinely outgun the latter – this leaving aside the greater Israeli population of available for fighting, some 1.5 million. Further, Israel has a much better-developed transportation and communications system, vital ingredients of modern war. There is no special conditions for fighting, nor any economic leverage for the Palestinians to apply, the sheer weight of power is on the Israeli side.
The Left support the struggles of the Palestinians because they are oppressed as a people, and their right to self-determination must be fought for. This illustrates hypocritical approach of the Left – the oppression of Palestinian workers is made qualitatively worse by the denial of national rights, that is, the denial to the Palestinian capitalists of a free hand in exploiting their workers and deceiving them into the nationalist belief that they share a common interest in defending a patch of land. Nationalism asserts that a group of people cannot exist as such unless defined by their ownership of a particular quarter of the world – the relations between “peoples” are actually the relations between patches of land, rather than the people upon them. It was the predominant form of ideology for the rising capitalist class in the 19th century, a way of understanding the world in terms of conflicting properties, and is now a tool for conning the working class into believing that there is some communal interest between themselves and their capitalist masters in where the boundaries of their state are drawn. Were the Palestinians to win, they would still be oppressed as workers, and the land would belong to a new set of owners. They would still be subject to poverty, to the tyranny of their rulers and to the chaos of capitalist existence. In fact, they could only lose out, as the sacrifice in life, freedom and material goods necessary to win such a war was made. The same goes for the Israeli working class as well
The Socialist Party appeals to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth's natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all. If the workers of the world are to be able to obtain and apply the control of the world of which they are capable, they need to throw aside such slogans as “Palestine for the Palestinians”.
“Our land” so far as the vast majority is concerned is ours only in poetry and in song - not in actuality. And the only historic right enjoyed by working people anywhere is the “right” to be exploited by, and subject to, a ruling class and its state. So long as the workers in the region remain prey to the manipulations of their respective master classes, vying for control of the land and the strategic position it possesses both sides can only lose their lives and liberty, so long as they see their own interests lie in the suppression of each other, rather than in the destruction of the murderous elites that promote the war on both sides.
To the Socialist Party, class-consciousness is the breaking down of all barriers to understanding. Keeping the workers unable to see the true state of affairs in the world works to the ruling class's advantage. Class existed before the nation-state. Despite many workers finding it difficult to communicate with and understand each other because of language or cultural barriers, this does not alter the fact that they are all part of one globalised exploited mass with more in common with each other than with their indigenous bosses.
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