Israel, Palestine, and the Socialist Solution

The national question is crucial to the Middle East, above all the Palestinian question. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have a genuine and legitimate struggle for their right to live and be free of oppression and occupation. It is a fight against occupation, oppression, colonialism, and imperialism. It is the fundamental duty of every revolutionary worker and peasant to defend the Palestinians against the violence and repression of Israeli despotism backed by imperialism. But it is also equally fundamental to learn correct lessons from the Palestinian struggle over the last 60 years and draw the right conclusions. The strategy based on “armed struggle,” individual terrorism, and negotiated settlements with the reactionary Israeli state under the auspices of imperialism has failed miserably to resolve a conflict which has become a festering wound.

Is there a power that is even stronger and more determined than the military might of Israel and its international imperialist and regional collaborators?

We answer emphatically in the affirmative. It is the power of the masses through the class struggle. This was amply demonstrated by the recent Arab Revolution. And more importantly, the two Palestinian Intifadas show without any possible doubt that the Palestinian masses are prepared to be organized and mobilized to fight heroically. There is no question of the courage and bravery of the Palestinian masses, but this on its own is not enough to achieve victory.

Only through a revolutionary overthrow of the Zionist state and the reactionary Arab regimes, using the methods of class unity and struggle, can the masses of the region be liberated and attain social, economic, national, and political emancipation. This struggle can only be completed and be victorious by the creation of a voluntary socialist federation of the Middle East.